


you can't go home (but i'm ready when you are)

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3254501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames had taken one look at him, tired and scraped out but desperate not to look it, and Eames must have known. He’d said, “He’s in too deep, kid,” with no irony in his voice, as if he thought Arthur honestly didn’t <i>know</i>, and he’d almost cried of frustration. <i>Of course</i> he was. Anyone could see that. Half of the people in dreamshare thought he’d shoved Mal off the ledge in a hotel suite, and Dom had hardly done anything to clear his name in going to ground, accepting jobs with eyes lit with the fuel of his own grief and burgeoning desperation. </p><p>Arthur let his hand fall to his side with a scowl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Arthur expects to stop being miserable after Cobb: he thinks for once he will go to sleep and leave his gun in the safe, maybe take two weeks, visit his Aunt in Providence in time for the fire-on-the-water festival, relax for the first time after what felt like years of being closeline-taut.

Instead, there is still the cold dread that lines the insides of his suit coats, like he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, pacing around expensive hotels and flicking from city to city to burn off some of his anxiety, latent paranoia that keeps him from knocking on Aunt Susan’s door.

Loyalty tied him to Cobb when he was clearly a sinking stone, and Arthur had felt it at a cellular level: _you can’t go back home_ , and still, he’d followed. He never expected to get his life back.

He hasn’t, technically, and there are things he’s put down that he’ll never have a chance to pick up again: he knows that. And still, the fact that he’s not running anymore means that he could, conceivably, build something else. And yet, here he is, still running, because Cobb hijacked his average life and rewired his brain and now all he knows how to do is stare up at hotel ceilings and want things he can’t have, even when there isn’t technically anything getting in his way.

*

The first time he’d met Eames in person, he must have been so obvious. He’d heard about him, of course, a lot of facts about him that were probably lies and a lot of things that sounded like lies that Cobb thought were probably true. He’d met them in Bali, or close enough to it, and Arthur put on his suit and did his hair in the only way that made him look old enough to buy his own drinks, and tried to ignore the fact that it was hovering around degrees in Indonesia, and they were still only on the fringes of summer.

He’d meant to make a good impression, the other man approaching the table when Dom had stepped away to take a hushed call.

“You must be Eames,” Arthur said, holding out a hand.

Eames had taken one look at him, tired and scraped out but desperate not to look it, and Eames must have known. He’d said, “He’s in too deep, kid,” with no irony in his voice, as if he thought Arthur honestly didn’t _know_ , and he’d almost cried of frustration. _Of course_ he was. Anyone could see that. Half of the people in dreamshare thought he’d shoved Mal off the ledge in a hotel suite, and Dom had hardly done anything to clear his name in going to ground, accepting jobs with eyes lit with the fuel of his own grief and burgeoning desperation.

Arthur let his hand fall to his side with a scowl.

The thing about Eames, Arthur would come to learn much, much later, was that he didn’t need very long to disassemble someone down to their separate clockwork parts, and knew almost immediately how to approach someone. Instead of taking his hand and giving his own name, he offered Arthur something else: “You should take off with me after this job.”

This time, though, he’d gotten it wrong. "If you think so, why are you here, Mr. Eames?" he’d snapped. He felt something coalesse, and it settled inside him in the same unchanging place his loyalty sat, quickly forged and with the potential to remain untouched forever.  

Eames had lifted the swell of on bulky shoulder, and Arthur could tell he had a very impressive weapon at his hip under the flapping disaster of his tourist outfit. “A favor,” he said, “because Cobb’s wife was really something.” Eames waited a minute to search Arthur’s face, and he worked hard to make it a blank slate instead of a pulsing billboard that agreed wholeheartedly. He didn’t know if he succeeded.

Arthur’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “Then you know something about why I can’t,” he said, because he was loyal to Mal, and to Cobb, both of whom had taken him in when he’d had no one and only one of whom was around to collect on the debt, now.

Eames had straightened then, let go of his slouched, nonthreatening posture, probably carefully designed to appeal to an Arthur he’d imagined was scared, needed someone to not take advantage of him and take him for granted. It helped solidify the way he’d known immediately he would feel about Eames.

At least with Cobb, Arthur _knew_ what was happening. He wasn’t great with people, and appreciated that at least he could tell, right there on the surface, that Cobb’s priority was himself, his own grief, and getting home to his kids.

When the job was all but over in the dream, Arthur had found himself idling at a cafe table, waiting for the kick. He could hear the faint stirrings of the musical countdown, Cobb on the first level letting him know it was coming, but a level down he knew he still had a few minutes. They’d done a good job of extracting, with the scene set up like the mark’s bank topside, and Eames doing an excellent forgery of the bank manager, waltzing right in, flirting with the tellers and pulling the key from his pocket like he had every right to be there.

In the cafe, the other patrons were starting to get a little snippy with each other, but the fact that none of them were looking at him was an excellent sign.

The projection at the front of the line, dark blond and slightly annoyed, accepted his sandwich from the projection running the counter and sat down next to Arthur at his table. He took a bite before he let it fall out of his mouth with a grimace. “You have no imagination,” he said, sticking out his tongue to swipe a napkin across it. “Everything here tastes like cardboard.”

It took Arthur two seconds to realize who he was speaking with, and he felt his mouth go dry. “Planning the cafe menu was not on the to-do list, asshole.”

The man -- who was Eames painted to look fairly reminiscent of Cobb, with worse fashion sense and a less pronounced squint -- said: “We’re going to scatter in a few minutes. I just wanted to tell you that you’re … you could really go somewhere.”

Arthur bristled, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as the melody floating down the cobbled street solidifies around them. He could finally pick out the bassline, underneath it all. “I’ve got promises to keep,” he bit out, as if it were any of Eames’ business.

"So did I," Eames said delicately, putting down the sandwich, and the napkin.  "Don’t let Cobb call me again."

"Understood," Arthur said, in a flat voice.

"I’m not kidding. No hard feelings, I just don’t have time to get murdered by his twisted backwards version of a woman who was too good for him to begin with." Arthur winced and Eames went on, faster when they knew that time was running out on the device on the next level. "But you know, feel free to call me any time. If you get in a spot. Or if you get tired of being miserable down a dead end."

Arthur tilted his head to the sky, up into the music, at half pace. “This is our stop, Mr. Eames,” he said, without bothering to respond to Eames’ offer. The man clearly had no loyalty, except maybe to Mal. Enough to show up to do one job for her husband, at any rate. Arthur was hitched to one nose-diving plane -- even if they were headed towards catastrophe, Arthur was secure in the knowledge that he’d be going down _with_ Cobb, a fact which gave him some sort of bleak comfort. He’d have no such knowledge with Eames, who would obviously be ready to send him overboard if the water got choppy.

They woke to Cobb arranging the mark more naturally on his bed, thumb on the pin prick at his elbow. “Shot myself out,” Cobb explains and Arthur can feel a headache coming on, because he’s told Cobb countless times that he should wait for the timer to run out topside because Arthur knows, has seen the cracks after long exposure on the run, heard snatches of what Mal says to him when she appears as his shade: _he’s already starting to doubt reality_ — he doesn’t need two Cobbs forgetting which realities you can kill yourself to get out of.

Eames wrapped up his line and nods at them both. Cobb looked at him sharply. “Thanks,” he said in a gruff voice, and something in Arthur burned at the knowledge that it’s more than he’ll ever say to Arthur, who procured him a new passport and left behind his own family to chase him around, be his security net, dumped out his savings and maxed out his cards to get them three rounds of circuitous flights to leave the country, burnt most of his own military contacts, and missed the date to defend his dissertation, neglected on a drive in his suitcase, now, which is still better than the rest of his dropped life.

Eames touched him between the shoulders on the way out, and Arthur didn’t call him after that, not for months and never to take him up on the offer, but he played it out like a fantasy when Cobb crossed the line, time and again, when Mal wrenched his elbow past the limits of a hinge joint, when he spent miserable night after miserable night in bleak hotels with dripping water. He kept track of him, just in case.

*

When Cobb demanded they contact him for inception, he’d had his doubts. He hadn’t seen Eames in eighteen months, hadn’t contacted him at all aside from that brief call he’d made months ago about getting a new passport, which had sounded like a prescription confirmation to anyone near enough to hear. Eames hadn’t sounded amused to hear from him, but he’d had them waiting at the front desk of their hotel in two days flat, wrapped in brightly colored paper and a bow. There’d been one other time, but it had been a mistake, and Arthur hardly remembered it after.

He didn’t know if he’d be receptive, but he’d dropped it at Cobb’s feet, anyway, like a scoff. “ _Eames is in Mombasa_.”

He had a half-spun fantasy of Eames being as persuasive as he’d been when they met, asking with his plush mouth, and Arthur, who’d had the mad weight of worry about his life (and Cobb’s, and the dubious honor of being Cobb’s point man / best friend / house dog) lifted from his shoulders could say yes this time.

It doesn’t come.

"Have a good flight, darling," he said, instead, and touched Arthur briefly between the shoulder blades as he headed back to ticketing.

Arthur took a plane, numb: Quebec, San Diego, Panama City, with the last dregs of energy he has left before he will let himself land on his Aunt’s doorstep, to the East Coast that feels as much like a home as anything can after the years he’s had, which is to say: not very much at all.

In Providence he bought himself new shoes from a department store when he lands. The banality of the moment should have bored him, but instead he found himself briefly elated.

Experimentally, he went through a whole list of tedious tasks for his widow Aunt, taking out the trash, walking her dog, checking the mail without his gun, just generally taking care of her with the same through, thoughtful care he’s applied to every task he’s been given since he shrugged off teenage laziness. She cupped his face and pulled him close, reminds him that he’s taller than his father but looks just like him.

For a week, he sank into the role with relish, acting like he belongs in department store shoes and the small dining room table by the window. By the second he’d began to think, wondering idly if Eames would answer if he called. He was fitted for a new suit, visited the library, which is small and doesn’t own a copy of _Seven Types of Ambiguity_ , which Arthur had been reading years ago, left thoughtlessly when Cobb had called him, and had never had a chance to pick up after.

Cobb didn’t call to check on him, but Arthur didn’t bridge the distance, either. That’s probably his job, Arthur mused bitterly, and failed to do so out of spite.

Anxiety crept in and Arthur came to the strange realization that even miserable with Cobb, at least he’d had someone to tell him what to do. Arthur doesn’t really need management, but he flourishes within the constraints of perimeters. Even broad ones, like a barked, " _Figure it out, Arthur_!" and then, as if by magic, he finds that he can.

He received a call on his work number: answered it too fast, over eager, clumsy. He hated himself for it immediately. There was a jug of milk in his hand, and he put it down, back onto the shelf.

"You’re Cobb’s old point, yes?" the accented voice on the other end asked him. He swallowed against the lump in his throat, at the finality of it all: all of his old lives packed up and here he is, drifting, four years lost with nothing to show for it.

"That’s me," Arthur said.

"I know Cobb’s been on the blacklist, but we’ve all heard about the job in Mumbai, and the stint in Toronto. My contact assures me that’s all your doing," the woman on the other end said, in a clipped voice, all business and no flattery.

Toronto still sat in his gut restlessly, the job that turned calcified his spine, possibly the one that had been the point of no return to his old life, an academic in military reserve to pay for his school, seduced by research and the lilting laugh of Mallorie Miles, as she’d been then. He’d called Eames, after, hand curled around a sweating tumbler of cheap vodka.

"Is your contact …" Arthur faltered, some stupid, wild hope thrashing in the cage of his ribs, "working this job?"

"He’s taking lead," she explained, "says the only way no one’s getting shot on this one is if you take point."

Arthur’s chest felt firefly warm all of the sudden. He grinned on accident as he said, “Have him give me a call.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some asked me if Eames was going to be better for Arthur than Cobb was in the comments of the last chapter, and I accidentally wrote 1k+ words in response to reassure her, so I realize it might as well be chapter two. 
> 
> ALSO. This is dedicated to whoever saw the last chapter marked 1/1 complete and subscribed anyway. You're the real MVP. ;)

They work the job, and it goes well. Better than that, because Eames is a brilliant wildcard and by asking for Arthur specifically, he's given him permission to rein him in. Arthur finds that being removed from the constant churning anxiety of being on the run with a self destructive partner does wonders for his ability to remain amused even in the face of Eames when he is at his most ridiculous. Arthur had, for some time, been running on the assumption that this was who he was -- a tense, unhappy man with knotted shoulders -- because he'd been living like that for years. He hadn't known that was only the way he feels unrested and perpetually underfed and under constant threat. He just hadn't known.

It's not that the job is easy, or, God-forbid, safe but he feels a certain kind of security of having a man at his back who doesn't waver, doesn't bring in the kind of emotional baggage that shows up as his dead wife who wants to see him bloodied, and _fuck_ , he didn't expect that thought to still hurt, but somehow it does. After the job, Arthur clasps Eames' hand in the hotel room they've booked for the dreaming portion of the job for a few precious seconds, the mark still sedated and drooling into his pillow. "I just wanted to tell you," he says, mouth soft with gratitude, "that I really appreciate you demanding Noel bring me on."

Eames patted himself down for a cigarette, lit one as he spoke. "I meant what I told her. You're the best, Cobb just took you out of the game for a while."

He feels stupidly pleased under the weight of Eames' gaze, suffused with warmth. Eames moves towards him, posture inviting, and Arthur's brain races through his options, cataloging his own anxieties and reasons why his veins have flooded with panic. What is he afraid of, he wonders, half wild with panic, but steeling himself to be receptive anyways. Eames must see it. He hates himself as he sees Eames lift one hand, palm up, as he halts his motion towards him. "I don't," Arthur cracks, with a voice like oncoming puberty.

"That's fine," Eames says, and he smiles at him, soft. "I'd still like you at my six."

And Arthur thinks, _that's it_ , that's what he's afraid of, that he's made a charismatic man his whole world before, hung his future on someone who lost interest in him when his use was up. He doesn't want to hang his work and his heart on the same peg, but then. He took so many chances on Dom, stupid reckless things, and would have slept with him if he'd crowded into his space like Eames is, regardless of attraction. Doesn't Eames deserve someone to take a chance on him; hasn't he earned that from Arthur?

What comes out of his mouth is too honest, he feels like an idiot. "I don't know what I want yet. I just got permission to be my own man."

"Alright," Eames says, easy, still smiling.

Arthur feels horrified by his own admission, but can't seem to stop; he's going to have to drown himself in the sink after this. But. He's let Eames in his brain, and if they make the team he thinks they will, it will happen again. Often, he hopes. "I've got a stupid crush on you because you were this fantasy I had when everything went to shit, and I don't want to jump into anything without knowing what's real."

He expects Eames to scoff then, to say something like _It's just sex, darling,_ calm as you please, scornful of Arthur acting like a teenaged girl, but Arthur's mixed up enough without adding that to the mix. Instead, Eames moves into his space regardless, and Arthur flinches because _seriously_ is it just his lot in life to be a tool for gorgeous criminals, and _of course_ after all of his fantasies he's only built Eames into something, someone who cares about him…

Eames reels Arthur in by his lapels, slow and even though Arthur's brain is going off-track at sixty miles an hour, he feels his hands go summer warm, pulse racing with anticipation and a faint edge of fear, sharp in his stomach, and then Arthur finds himself snug against the solid, heavy front of Eames, his chin on Arthur's shoulder. Arthur allows himself a moment of discomposure, tucking himself against Eames' chest like he's been vacuum-sealed.

"You're going to be fine," Eames says, touching his nos to Arthur's temple. It feels absurdly intimate, and Arthur gives a full body shudder. When Eames pulls away, Arthur thinks it is probably true.

Eames gives him time to hold up his mental image of Eames, the Eames he invented when he needed to imagine life had gone differently, to hold it up to the light and compare it to the one in front of him. They work a job, and a second, Eames pulling him along with a calm force that leaves no room for arguing, and then a third, a job Arthur gets himself and shows up at Eames' hotel for, to convince him to try extraction. After inception, Arthur knows he's more than capable. "Just you and me," he says, and Eames, who seems to trust him implicitly, says _yes, of course_.

When Arthur figures out that he wants to try, wants to have the real Eames, not his fantasy exactly, but different, better, sometimes annoying but always the man he wants to watch his back in a situation with unknown elements, he says that too. Eames who wanted to rescue him when he couldn't have been pulled away from Cobb, Eames who insisted people let him back into dreamshare, after, Eames who soothed his drunk ass when he'd killed a man and needed to talk to someone about it, stupid and vulnerable. Eames, who waited for him to think, to weigh his options, worried that he would slip into some deeper level of codependancy than he'd had with Dom, worried he would come to love Eames hopelessly and he would only think of Arthur as the best weapon in his arsenal, useful but ultimately machine. _Yes, of course,_ he says against Arthur's mouth, when Arthur finally crowds him back.  _Yes, of course,_ into his palm and his thighs, and the inside of his knee. _Yes, of course,_ Eames says, like _he's_ the one who invented Arthur when he was lonely in dripping, miserable hotel rooms and the thought of someone to take him home made all the difference between bleak insanity and making it through one more night.

Arthur feels it too. _Yes_ , he thinks, like his whole history was an obvious march here. _Of course._

 


End file.
